The cautionary tale of NFS and BLESTO grades – Sorting through what actually matters most in the NFL Draft space
We are firmly in the Summer Scouting portion of the 2027 NFL Draft class. As spring grades leak out, it is important to use them in the right way.
For all the devout film watchers and draftniks out there, the Summer is always a fun place. For months, the space is dedicated to watching as many future NFL Draft prospects as possible. We are right in the middle of the 2027 NFL Draft early work.
You set yourself up with a baseline for the class, a new season of film comes, final evaluations and scouting reports are filed, the NFL Draft comes and goes, and the process begins all over again. It’s a cyclical world that most roll their eyes at. For the real draft nerds like myself, it’s a wonderful world, and it can be even more fun to look back on past hits, misses, and reevaluate your individual scouting process.
Around this time every year, NFL spring grades begin to leak to the public, and they have already been doing so over the last several weeks. Two services supply these early grades for potential 2027 NFL Draft prospects: BLESTO and NFS. Once those grades are out, the Twitter space is littered with verified measurements, draft feedback, and folks pretending like they have discovered every hidden gem.
Should the public have access to these grades? No, but don’t tell the Angry NFL Scout Vet. They’re incredibly easy to get as long as you know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, and sometimes it’s even easier than that.
BLESTO and NFS can be valuable resources for some, while others can use them for all the wrong reasons. Context is important with spring grades, but not as much as the process that they fall into.
What is BLESTO?
BLESTO is probably the more interesting of the two services. Perhaps starting with the acronym would be a solid starting point. BLESTO stands for Bears-Lions-Steelers- Talent-Organization.
They are a private, national scouting service that multiple NFL teams subscribe to for help evaluating college football prospects for the upcoming draft. The member franchises share resources, such as verified measurements, 40-yard dash times, character reports, and tiered grades, to help lay the foundation for the process. While the teams supply the BLESTO scouts, they function as an individual entity.
During the spring, these BLESTO scouts travel around the country to visit schools and create the product. While these BLESTO scouts are usually the low man on the totem pole and therefore more inexperienced, this early information can be very beneficial across the league.
The grades, however, can be imperfect. With the team being composed of those aforementioned inexperienced scouts, the information, such as the verified measurements, is generally the more useful piece of the pie. Some BLESTO scouts are good evaluators, but a large portion have supplied questionable early grades in the past.
Like anyone, they have their hits and misses every year. Here were their top graded prospects for the 2026 NFL Draft last preseason.
RB Jeremiyah Love (Notre Dame)
OT Xavier Chaplin (Auburn)
LB Harold Perkins (LSU)
EDGE TJ Parker (Clemson)
TE Max Klare (Ohio State)
WR Jordyn Tyson (Arizona State)
EDGE LT Overton (Alabama)
There are certainly some hits in that group, while Chaplin, Perkins, and Overton were big misses. BLESTO has a few weird blunders each year, like having a seventh round grade on former Dallas Cowboys first rounder Tyler Booker. It’s human nature to miss, and we’re far from perfect.
While that’s true, the NFS track record might be even worse, at least recently.
What is NFS?
Every year, around late February-early March, folks from all over travel to Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine, which is an annual multi-day event where top draft prospects are evaluated by NFL teams through physicals and mental tests, interviews, medicals, and on-field testing. The folks who handle the logistics of that event are National Football Scouting (NFS).
NFS is one of the premier centralized scouting services utilized by NFL front offices. It is primarily responsible for generating preliminary fall player evaluations, distributing grades, and running logistics for the aforementioned NFL Scouting Combine. Unlike BLESTO, NFS does not have any direct affiliation with NFL teams, but is an outside resource.
Functionally, both NFS and BLESTO do largely the same job. I must say, at least based on recent results, the NFS grades have left a lot to be desired. Here were their top-rated 2026 NFL Draft prospects from a year ago, in order.
QB Garrett Nussmeier (LSU)
OT Drew Shelton (Penn State)
RB Nick Singleton (Penn State)
EDGE Zion Young (Missouri)
WR Germie Bernard (Alabama)
OT Max Iheanachor (Arizona State)
WR De’Zhaun Stribling (Ole Miss)
OT Isaiah World (Oregon)
OT Trey Zuhn (Texas A&M)
CB Will Lee III (Texas A&M)
Of that list of their 12 highest-rated players from last class, a total of one player went in the first round. It was composed of one first rounder, three second rounders, one third rounder, two fourth rounders, one fifth rounder, one seventh rounder, and one priority free agent.
That’s… not great.
What matters most with BLESTO and NFS
As you can see, the grades can be all over the place between the two services. Most folks, at least the ones who have a solid process, don’t even look at those grades. Having that information, unfortunately, can morph an evaluator’s perspective and cause them to overvalue players that they think “the NFL is higher on”.
Sometimes, believe it or not, the NFL gets things wrong. That’s especially true when it’s their most inexperienced scout or a third-party source of information. Instead of using those grades, the verified measurements are what should matter most.
If you are convicted as an evaluator, someone else’s opinion on a player shouldn’t cause you to change yours. The verified measurements, however, can assist with a nice cross-checking exercise as you work through your summer list of prospect watches. If an offensive tackle plays long on film, for example, it can be beneficial to verify that they are long with an arm measurement.
Let these spring grades verify your opinions. Don’t let them create them. Make Summer Scouting great again.